Can the Diatom Bacilliarophy Extract Silicon from Siloxanes?

thank you... nice post...

Glad you appreciated it. I have googled it a number of different ways and there seems, at least so far, to be very little out there on this.

Quite so James!

As a biofuel source algae holds the best promise.( I think, feel free to dispute this)

Any developments there are good,good, good.

You can't beat chemical energy storage for transport applications. Electrical storage is getting better but still nowhere near what we have come to rely on and enjoy with petroleum fuels and their bio equivalents.

Anything that will keep the throb of a V8 as an integral part of the roadscape is good.

I hope some bio-inclined members can shed some comprehensible light on this.

Thanks for bringing this up dijeferidu

Hi Wal. I feel similarly as you do. The one thing is though that even though algae will grow on land that will not support much of anything of value, if you are in the desert water is a bit more scarce and another oil producing plant might be a better idea. However it has also occurred to me that one could possibly investigate the use of reclaimed water or waste water from nearby municipalities and make algae farming more of a likeliehood in a desert environ. But there is definitely no crop that produces oil in the volume that algae does.

What's with the hang up of being in a desert?

If you need loads of clean water then locate where the water is plentiful.

Weren't there some algeal processes that could use sea water?

I have a number of projects in the desert that will more than likely keep me there. I am not sure of the legalities of obtaining water from the Colorado River. That is on the list to investigate though since i will not be far from there. Not really a "hang up", just a limitation I will have to work with.

Algal hydrocarbons are still hydrocarbons. I'd prefer photovoltaics and wind and hydro, and the genteel whine of in-wheel electric motors.

Hi. True they are hydrocarbons but if this is possible, that is to extract silicon from siloxanes by means of ....percolating these gases through algae diatoms then at least a toxic gas is being removed from the atmosphere. I dont know if you are aware but these gases are released all the time from landfills. They generate from the skin care products and make up in the landfill. It may be that it is not as simple as simply percolating the gas through a bed of algae. There may need to be an intermediate step. Was wondering if anybody had familiarity with this branch of chemistry.

(1) Bacillariophyta is I believe the correct spelling, it is not the name of a 'strain' but refers to the larger group of photosynthetic diatoms. No references to "Bacilliarophy" came up in my search except for the original source of the spelling error and those who repeated it, afaict.

(2) The Bacillariophyta take up silicon as silicic acid which is present in aqueous environment. In order for them to take up a siloxane, it would have to first be converted to silicic acid. This would be an energetically expensive reaction (I'll let someone else supply the details on that). Silicon is the most abundant element on earth and is found in virtually all environments and is widely available in many chemical forms including the acid used by diatoms to build their cell walls. I believe it is an error to think of silicon as a limiting factor for diatom growth in natural environments. Water, sunlight, temperature and macronutrients (NPK) are far more likely to be limiting factors for their growth.

(3) Mechanical methods to remove siloxanes from biogas by facilitating its escape as a gas are more efficient than conversion to a solid, and are far more desirable than the use of an organism which itself will cause biofouling of filtration systems with silicon solids. Even if the intention is to harvest them and extract their 25% oil biomass, you do not want to introduce a silicon accumulation process into biogas filtration. For a low-cost, low-tech system, maybe the use of a seasonal process that removes the siloxane by condensation process exploiting low winter temperatures would be feasible for some locations.